Animations using different mediums

This animation is done using post it notes and a pen. It is one mans journey through his life which he is revisiting from looking at his old post-it notes and remaking them into an animation. The point of this is to show what big world events he didn’t take any notice of because of how involved he was with his own life. The actual drawings are very good and artistic and show movement well and I think it gets the message across very quickly of passing of time and important event s being missed. The way he draws shows imagination and creativity. I think it tells the story very well and must have used a lot of post-its! The actual animation must have taken a lot of planning and thought. It led me to look at his other animations where you can see he is very talented. The use of dates throughout the animation represents the passing of time and the way he uses post-it notes. I like how he can merge one into the next from words to an image.




This is a simple animation made using post-it notes. I like this method and should like to try it out.


This is another animation using post it notes. Instead of drawing on the and using them to animate they are used to make a picture. when each image is taken something changes on the post-it notes to create a series of images which in then make a video.





This in an animation of a structure being pushed down, it is like dominos







This is a drawn animation using a whiteboard and marker pens. I like how he alternates between being able to see him drawing and the drawings ‘drawing themselves’ it makes them look as though they are morphing on their own. He also uses a technique, which makes him look like he is drawing with his finger. This method tells a brilliant and abstract story which looks complicated and intricate. I assume a lot of planning went into this. He also uses props like pens and cloth in the actual film. He uses different colour pens, which I really like and although there doesn’t seem to be any meaning to what he is drawing the ideas flow very well from one to another There seems to be an ongoing theme of music and musical notes with creatures used throughout.

Examples of recent animations I like

Rabbit


Who I am and what I want
chris Shepherd and David Shrigley


Rotting artist




This is a stop motion animation which tells a story. The use of light is very clever as it shows the passing of time and how time is frozen. Light is also used to exaggerate areas of the film where she is supposed to be on a train they flash a light to represent passing lights. I like the way the props like the bed are used, where the pillows are used as clouds and stairs and the clothes are used to represent animals like birds and fish. I think the video goes very well with the song and it is supposed to represent dreaming. I like the way a story is told here it may be that she is dreaming of a man or sleepwalks but the clever use of props propels you into a new world. The storyboard shows how this was achieved. They took a huge amount of still photos which were then pieced together.



This is a stop motion film of a woman who took a photograph of her own face for 200 days. I really like this video as it shows progression and change. The way each photograph is different but her face remains in the same place I imagine she must have used a tripod.

using animation to tell a story.


This is a stop motion using a chalkboard, chalk and a camera. I like the theme of it and how it tells a story about autumn. The way you can see where the chalk has been is really interesting and it looks very well thought out. The part with the cat shows movement very well and reminds me a bit of the artist Blublu as it flows in a similar way and the way objects morph into other things. The method of ‘painting over’ is also very similar to Blublu and the movement of objects and the use of geometric shapes when the cloud is raining is also similar to his work. The growing tree that turns into a man is the part I like the best but the way it ends with the same scene as it starts is very aesthetically pleasing. The overall story I imagine is about children and the way they communicate/interact. It also shows childlike imagination in the way one idea flows into another and you have playground games such as Chinese whispers and the clapping game.





This animation is quite simple but very effective. A chalk half-pipe is drawn on the floor then images are takes of a skateboarder while posing on the floor. This is quite effective and shows movement quite well. This is similar to a lot of skateboarding animations I have seen like the stop motion ‘human skateboard’



This is a fairly simple way of using stop motion to tell a story. I like how it seems the artist interacts with the snowman as well as just drawing him. This chalkboard method is really nice as you can see where the last drawing was.



This is an interesting way of animating. Drawing over a picture. He uses thin and think pens and also sand. What he is drawing is actually quite abstract and doesn’t make a lot of sense. He has also edit this so it flashes new images making it quite difficult to follow.



This animation uses photographs to tell a story. It shows a boy growing up and how he got to be in the anniversary photograph. It very cleverly shows different stages of his life using photographs, which were positioned around what I’m assuming is his house. Thousands of photographs were taken to produce this, it is supposed to advertise a camera and I think it serves its purpose very well. I like the way in which the photographs progress from black to white representing a change in time. And how photographs are used to map out a route in which the boy then walks along. The camera positions are also very important in helping the film flow freely. I like the use of frames in this video showing he is travelling and the use o the balloon. The way the camera follows the photographs shows we are following his life and his journey.

Dryden Goodwin

Dryden Goodwin is an artist who sketches people. I really like these because it shows how the images are drawn rather than just the final image.





These are amazing videos made by artist Dryden Goodwin for a project in London called 'Linear'. 60 pencil portraits of Jubilee Line staff with 60 separate short films recording the making of each drawing as the staff are working - maybe driving a train, on the ticket barriers or selling ticket, loads of different situations. You can see the drawings as posters, on lightboxes and at special exhibition sites across the London Underground and also watch all 60 films at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/art - check out Dryden Goodwin's website also at http://www.drydengoodwin.com/ for more of his art work.

Flight
Dryden Goodwin


Dryden Goodwin’s Flight, is an installation of inter-related elements including a film combining live action, animated intervention and a multi-layered soundtrack, presented alongside hundreds of small-scale pen and ink drawings, which construct and constitute the animation.

Flight places the viewer at the centre of the action through the eyes of the artist fugitive embarked on an emotional and ambiguous escape journey. The film tracks the protagonist’s movement out from urban vistas, via motorway networks, through forests to the coast, onwards to the sea and sky. Evoking the fear of pursuit and a restless inability to settle and relate to people, place and self alongside the hope of liberation. The transformative quality of the animated interventions suggests a superimposed fantasy or reverie.

Goodwin is interested in viewing the film and drawings in close proximity, exploring the potential for one to influence and heighten the viewer’s experience of the other. Built into the structure of the film are rhythmic tensions between accelerated forward motion and serene stillness. This allows a context for static and moving images to interact by exploring a journey and the formation of memory. The dislocating nature of the film is complimented by intensely realised drawings that are placed within illuminated display cases. Ranging from minimal marks to elaborate structures, the drawings repeatedly revisit moments from the journey and amass captured thoughts and emotions. The multi-layered sound recording, comprising of orchestration, natural sounds and voices, accentuates and interprets the details presented in the work.

Goodwin’s pen and ink drawings and animated interventions offer the viewer diverse gestures as potential keys to psychological states, suggesting an evolving relationship between the unknown protagonist and the changing surroundings.
The film element of Flight expands on a short film commissioned by the animate! project, funded by Arts Council England and Channel 4 Television, UK.

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film director, producer, animator, screenwriter and entertainer. Disney is famous for his influence on the field of entertainment during the 20th Century. He was the co-founder of Walt Disney productions and he became one of the best known motion picture producers in the world. His staff and himself produced some of the worlds most well known animated characters such as Mickey mouse, who Disney himself was the original voice.
He started off his creative side by becoming the cartoonist for the school paper and decided he wanted to draw cartoons for a living after being rejected by the army because he was too young. He worked alongside cartoonists and animators until he saved enough money to enter Hollywood. It was here he found his success and went on to produce feature film's such as 'Snow White'.

Nick Park

Nick Park is an English animator. He is the film maker who created the famous stop motion animations 'Wallace and Gromit' and 'Shaun the Sheep'.

In 1985, he joined the staff of Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he worked as an animator on commercial products. He made Creature Comforts as his contribution to a series of shorts called "Lip Synch". Creature Comforts matched animated zoo animals with a soundtrack of people talking about their homes. The two films were nominated for a host of awards. A Grand Day Out beat Creature Comforts for the BAFTA award, but it was Creature Comforts that won Park his first Oscar.

In 1990 Park worked alongside advertising agency GGK to develop a series of highly acclaimed television advertisements for the "Heat Electric" campaign. The Creature Comforts advertisements are now regarded as among the best advertisements ever shown on British television, as voted independently by viewers of the UK's main commercial channels ITV and Channel 4.

Two more Wallace and Gromit shorts, The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), followed, both winning Oscars. He then made his first feature-length film, Chicken Run (2000), co-directed with Aardman founder Peter Lord. He also supervised a new series of "Creature Comforts" films for British television in 2003.

His second theatrical feature-length film and first Wallace and Gromit feature, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was released on 5 October 2005, and won Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 78th Academy Awards, 6 March 2006.